When it comes to running a design store like Kiosk — which has a constantly changing inventory of low-priced objects from foreign countries — it helps to have an unconventional background. Before opening
the tiny shop a year and a half ago, Alisa Grifo, 37, worked as an assistant curator at the Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, an editor at Metropolis magazine and a set designer and prop stylist. Ms. Grifo
said she noticed that with the march of globalization, she was seeing fewer compelling everyday products on the market. She said she wanted to start a store “to find, document and sell them before they
disappeared entirely.”

She began with well-designed but unglamorous items from Japan — things you might find in a hardware or general store there — and then moved on to Sweden, then Mexico, and Germany. Current offerings
include a box of crayons ($8), a hand-carved cuckoo clock ($180), a red garbage can ($100) and a “heavy-duty” ice cream scoop ($30). There is also an “ongoing items” section, which
includes a Red Desktop Stapler ($60) from Sweden.

It’s a store that few have heard of, and one whose products fly in the face of the design-celebrity culture embodied by Moss. But at least one fellow retailer, John Tusher of Velocity Art and Design, is optimistic
about its prospects. “Do you want to buy a pack of paper clips from Moscow?” he asked. “Maybe. It might blow up into something big.”